The race for artificial intelligence is on, and top companies are sparing no expense to acquire the best AI talent. OpenAI, Deepmind, Google, and Meta are among the leaders in the AI industry and are competing fiercely for AI scientists. While OpenAI pays up to $10 million a year to its researchers and offers additional stock benefits, Meta can only offer up to $2.5 million in salary. As a result, Meta has been losing top AI talent to other firms, prompting Zuckerberg to personally reach out to scientists at Google’s Deepmind unit. This article explores the intensifying competition for AI talent and the strategies employed by these companies to attract and retain top researchers.